


From the Same Star

by shipatfirstsight



Category: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Kylo is a double agent, Not Incest, Post-Canon, Pre Canon, and then follows canon, character death (not Ben or Rey), fluff and agnst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:22:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5685478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipatfirstsight/pseuds/shipatfirstsight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd promised her he'd always come back for her, but he's not sure if there's enough of him left to keep that promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Same Star

_I feel like a part of my soul has loved you since the beginning of everything._

_Maybe we're from the same star_.

 

\--Emery Allen

Ben is used to new children being brought to the Jedi temple; it happens every so often as Uncle Luke's contacts find more and more Force sensitive children. So it's not new when a ship shows up with a young girl who feels strong in the Force; what's new is how quickly Ben takes to her. 

They're stretched thin, Luke the only Master. The older Padawan's have to care for the younger. Master Luke frets over it; it’s not like the old order and they have to keep their existence a tightly guarded secret, so it’s hard to bring more people to their little corner of the universe.

Ben is assigned to look after the three year old and start training her in little things—using the Force mostly, tapping into her power. He was prepared to find the task difficult and dull—tiresome, not befitting his own powers (there’s a voice that whispers to him at night that as a Jedi he’ll never realize his full potential; he tries to push that voice away).

Rey is a quick study, he finds, strong in the Force. She’s amazingly mature for her age; Master Luke tells him it’s probably because she witnessed her parents being killed. He can tell she wants to move on in her studies; she eyes his lightsaber with wonder and curiosity. “Wait a little while,” he always tells her. “You have to go through this part first.”

It’s what he was told when he was younger; it grates on his nerves to say it.

She’s stubborn, though, and when he catches her trying to steal his lightsaber in his sleep, he decides a compromise is in order. She’s four now, anyway. Ben makes a small double-sided staff for her. With patience he didn’t know he had, he goes through her forms with her.

Rey fellows Ben everywhere; where he is, she will inevitably show up sooner or later. He thinks he should be annoyed by it—all the other older Jedi-in-training are annoyed by their young charges—but he thinks he likes her company as much as she likes his. They…fit, he supposes. It’s like they were two separate things, flung apart, and now that they’re together a part of him he didn’t know was missing is complete.

She makes him feel compassion and hope, and he’d wonder if he’d ever feel those things fully.

Rey’s given to fits of passion—her anger sparks through the Force at times. He wonders at the two of them. They don’t seem quite light, but they’re not fully dark either. Maybe they’re somewhere in between.

When Rey is five, Master Luke tells her the worst thing ever, in her estimation, or at least that’s what she tells him later. In any case, Ben finds her crying, having only been able to find her hiding place because he’s so attuned to her Force signature.

"Rey," he says softly, kneeling down beside her, "what's wrong?"

"Master Luke said Jedi can't get married," she sobs out. Rey looks up at her Ben, half blinded by tears, and sniffles, trying to calm her emotions.

Ben sputters, looking torn between laughter and confusion. Finally, he asks, "Why's that so bad?"

"Because!” she shouts, then throws her hands over her mouth; he suspects she’s embraced by her volume and that she doesn’t want anyone else to see her crying. I--I wanted to marry you someday," she admits and at her confession, she promptly starts sobbing again.

Ben's not quite sure what to do with the young Padawan before him. He's never been around crying people with any regularity and he's at a loss. _If only Jedi training covered this_ , he thinks ruefully. He does his best though, scooping Rey into his arms and rocking her gently back and forth. Her tears don't slow down, though; her little fists clutch the front of his tunic and her tears are soaking through to her chest. He's desperate to make this better somehow. "We can still get married," he blurts out after what feels like hours of listening to her tears because it seems like the only logical thing to promise her.

Rey's tears stop immediately, to his complete relief, and she looks up at him with hope and a smile, still not loosening her hold on his robes. "Really?"

He nods, smiling back at her. "If my grandparents can marry in secret than so can we." He's not sure he really means it, after all she's five and he's fifteen, but he can't bear to see her this upset.

He thinks he'd promise her anything if he got to see her smile like that again.

(That dark voice he hears loves this new information. He tells Ben that they’ll never be allowed to be Jedi and be together…he sends Ben twisted pictures of her mangled body. He tells Ben she will die if she remains a Jedi, and Ben will never get to see her smile again. All night long, over and over, different images of her dead and broken without him….and then a promise. _If you join the Dark Side, I can tell you how to save her_.)

Ben goes to his uncle in the morning. Tells him everything he’s been hearing. Luke looks on in horror. “I was worried about it coming to this,” he says with a sigh. Ben has never seen him look so defeated. “My father gave up his life to destroy the Sith but the Dark Side is still there.”

“Tell me what to do, Master,” he pleads.

“Ben…I’m going to have to ask you to do something horrible. But I think you’re strong enough to do it.”

Join the Dark Side, his Master—his Uncle—tells him. Convince whoever this new evil is that Ben is on his side. Destroy it from the inside—Luke has looked for it for years and it’s evaded him at every turn, but it’s calling out for Ben. “You’re going to be fighting against yourself,” Luke says quietly. “Every moment. The call of the Dark Side…it’s not easy to resist, and you’re going to have to give in to it. Whatever he asks you to do, you’re going to have to do it.”

“But what if—“

Luke stops him from voicing his tremulous thoughts. “Do whatever you have to do to convince him you’re on his side.”

They hatch a plot that Ben is sure is doomed to failure. He can’t let himself even think on it for fear that the voice will know…he locks the plan up in a corner of his mind.

He has to go off world on a ‘mission,’ and then he has to tell the voice that he has decided to defect.

When Rey finds out he’s leaving she flies into a panic. “Don’t leave me!” she cries over and over.

He hugs her, tightly, promises her, “I’ll always come back for you,” and then he leaves. The last thing he hears is her cries through their Force connection.

The voice—Snoke, he finally tells him—is only too happy that Ben has given up the light. _You need a new name,_ he whispers in Ben’s mind. _You are now, Kylo Ren_.

“What would you have me do, Master?”

_I need someone to replace Darth Vader—someone to put the Resistance and the New Republic in line—and who better than Vader’s own grandson? Create your own suit._

It’s not hard for Ben—Kylo Ren, he corrects himself—to do. He’s spent his whole life looking at the burnt mask of his grandfather. When he’s done, Snoke is pleased.

 _Well done, my young apprentice. You might even be more terrifying than your grandfather_.

Kylo finds that donning the mask, putting on his all black uniform, seeing people’s features twist in horror at his appearance brings a heady sense of power. He likes it; it’s intoxicating. (He shouldn’t like it.)

 _Make yourself a new lightsaber,_ Snoke tells him. So Kylo does; he uses a broken crystal and the design is flawed, the weapon looks ready to break apart at any moment—Kylo has to add side guards to keep the crystal from fracturing—but Snoke thinks it’s terrifying and praises him for it.

“What would you have me do now, Master?” he speaks to the quiet of his room, knowing Snoke will hear him.

 _You must remove any weakness. It was the downfall of Vader._ Snoke pauses—Kylo can feel him contemplating before satisfaction seeps through the Force as Snoke settles on an idea. _Destroy the new Jedi Order_.

“Master?” he can’t help the question—he wasn’t-he didn’t know if he could do that.

 _Prove yourself to me, Kylo Ren_. _Kill all of them_. _Except for Luke—let him live knowing everything he’s worked for has been destroyed_. _We can always kill him later_.

Kylo—Ben—doesn’t want this; he can’t do this, he’s ready to give it all up. But Luke’s voice whispers in the locked part of his mind, _Whatever he asks_ …

“Of course, Master,” Kylo Ren says. “It will be done.”

Snoke gives him control of the Knights of Ren (Kylo likes the power that comes from being in charge, from knowing this group has to follow him without question) to aid in the destruction of the Jedi temple. They come in the night, marching on the place that was Ben’s home. Kylo is glad for the anonymity his new suit offers him—glad that his fellow Jedi have no idea who he is.

And then he remembers Rey. He panics, breathing coming heavy even through his mask. He orders the other Knights to kill all in their path, and then searches for her Force signature. He finds her, easily, and rushes to her.

She shrinks in fear at the sight of him; his heart constricts in his chest. He shuts his mind off from her so she won’t know who he is. Kylo knocks her out with the Force and scoops her in his arms, hiding her under his cloak. He _runs_ to his ship, and takes off without a thought. He’ll explain himself later (he wonders why he doesn’t try to save anyone else, why its only the thought of her death that sends him into a frenzy).

Snoke is going to know he spared her, Kylo knows; he doesn’t know how to hide it from him, but he’s going to have to try. He’s going to have to leave her alone.

Rey wakes up eventually, and when she sees him, she starts yelling.

"Ben! Ben!" she screams and screams for a person who no longer exists.

The monster that was Ben winces beneath his mask.

His traitorous hands move against his will, seeking to comfort the girl (he can only think of her as the girl now; he has endangered her enough as it is, he must purge her from his thoughts as best he can).

"Ben!" She screams again, calling for help.

"Ben Solo is dead," Kylo Ren says, and his voice sounds foreign trough the mask.

She finally stops screaming, only to stare at him in abject horror. "Ben isn't dead," her voice is a firm whisper; there’s hardness in her eyes, and he’s proud of her bravery even in the face of her fear. "He promised he’d come back for me."

"I killed him, girl."  _This is too hard,_  he thinks,  _this isn't what I wanted_. "He is dead. Promise or not."

She starts screaming again.

It's not till they're on Jakku that he tells her, "Be quiet, girl." Leaving her here is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. _I’ll come back for you someday_ , he promises he silently, _whatever it takes, I’ll come back to you_. She cries and screams as he walks away, and he fights every step to not turn around and take her with him.

(He only wants to remember screams; it will be easier to lie later if all he can remember is screams.)

 

Kylo Ren forgets the girl.

To be fair, he forgets everything about the boy he once was. All he knows is death and darkness (if he remembers screams in his sleep, that doesn’t mean they’re _hers_ ; he’s made so many people scream.)

He searches for Luke, though, to his master and general’s discontent. “I want to eradicate the Jedi,” he reasons. They seem to accept his answer.

Who knew that the search for Luke would bring him back to Jakku? He does not remember the first time he was here; it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past, and he’s not that person anymore.

(He kills just to keep the First Order from being able to torture the information out of any of the people in the village. He lets the droid go when he should follow it and get the map that he knows is inside it, tortures the pilot who was once his friend for show as _do whatever it takes_ echoes through his mind. When he hears one stormtrooper’s thoughts— _escape, escape, escape_ —he warns no one and does nothing to stop the soldier.)

It’s not until later, when one of the officers tells him the BB-8 droid got away with the help of a _girl_ that he remembers. There was a girl on Jakku—he shuts the thought down, giving into anger instead and slashing equipment. Anger comes easily to him now; destruction follows in his steps and he _likes it_ and he hates that he likes it.

(When he asks Darth Vader to help him, Snoke thinks he means to help Kylo destroy the light. Kylo just needs help staying on the dark side. Master Luke had said the call of the Dark was strong, but he’s in it and he hates it and all he wants is the comfort of the light once more and he has to pretend to love the Dark. It’s becoming less and less of a struggle to pretend; harder and harder to remember what he’s really there to do. _He’s being torn apart like the crystal in his lightsaber, one second from complete destruction_.)

 

When she’s in his arms—the girl, the girl, _he doesn’t know her; she means nothing to him_ —he fights the light harder than he’s ever had to. She is neither light nor dark, but the light surrounds her and he can feel it calling to him. He should go after the droid; it’s impractical to take the girl instead of the droid. He takes the girl.

She’s scared of him (he likes it; he hates it). When she asks him to take off his mask, he does, if only to see if she recognizes him (he _feels_ her mind flare with recognition and smirks; she doesn’t remember him, though, and it hurts, because the recognition brings confusion in her mind and he hears _how do I know him?_ ).

When he enters her mind— _a violation_ , a part of him whispers; _a necessity_ , another part of him answers—he does it to see what she knows. If she’s seen the map, he’ll have to kill her, no hesitation this time. The fate of the galaxy is more important than old feelings.

She’s seen the map.

She sees into _his_ head. “You’re afraid you’ll never be as powerful as Darth Vader.”

(He’s afraid he’ll never be powerful enough to destroy the dark side, but he can’t let her see that, can’t let her untrained mind have that information so he shoves her out of his mind before she can get that from him too.)

He leaves her there. Alive.

Kylo will find a way to keep her alive. “She’s powerful,” he tells his master, “More powerful than she knows.” He can’t let Snoke know how much he really cares about her.

He will train her. He can’t be alone anymore. He’ll drag her into the dark with him, as they would have kept each other in the light under different circumstances.

“Oh, and Kylo,” Snoke says before he leaves, “I am not convinced of your loyalty.”

“Master, I have shown—“

“You are still drawn to the light Kylo Ren. Regardless of what you have shown. Something is coming; I want you to kill Han Solo.”

 _Whatever it takes_ , his mind whispers, even as his thoughts race and he fights the need to tell this monster that he’ll never kill his father. “Of course, Master,” he says. “You know where my loyalty lies.”

“When you kill him, you’re training will be complete. You will belong to the dark,” Snoke promises, a grim smile twisting his features.

The thought isn’t comforting.

 

(It’s harder to remember what he’s really there for anymore. _I shouldn’t have killed him_ , he thinks over and over and over, constantly, _that should have been the line I didn’t cross_. The hate he feels toward himself makes him feel more powerful; his sadness and anger all feed the darkness inside of him.)

 

Rey and Kylo fight again and again. They can never kill the other.

(Sometimes, both of them spent and tired and wounded, they talk or yell or scream at each other. _Join me_ , he begs. _Come back to the light,_ she implores. He thinks she knows something she shouldn’t, knows what he’s doing. _There’s nothing of the light left in me_ , he pushes at her, letting her see all the bad he’s done. She always shakes her head sadly at him. _Come back_.)

 

Later, when the war is won and Snoke is dead (but so is Han and Luke and so _many_ others, many at Kylo—Ben’s, _I’m Ben again_ , own hand) because Rey was stronger than him in the end, Ben wonders what he’s going to do.

He wasn’t who Luke thought he was. In the end, the thought of killing Snoke had stopped him in his tracks, and he _couldn’t make himself do it_. Rey had been the one to end the Supreme Commander with no help from anyone.

(He hadn’t tried to stop her. It’s a small kind of comfort.)

He pulls her away when the building starts to collapse, saves her from the stormtroopers and surviving Knights of Ren. But he doesn’t help destroy Snoke. It was what he was supposed to do and he _couldn’t_.

His mother, the Resistance, none of them are quite sure what to do with him now. Luke had explained what he had instructed his nephew to do, but…Ben had done so much bad.

(Kylo had always been him, he knows, always a possibility in himself; he couldn’t blame his actions of the Knight of Ren because it _had been him_ every step of the way and he deserves the looks of distrust leveled his way.)

It’s Rey who saves him. “I’ll keep on eye on him,” she says.

They don’t speak; she flies them to the island where Luke was living. Ben can feel the light in every corner of the place. It’s comforting.

“Were you ever going to come back?” she whispers softly, breaking the silence between them.

He looks at her sharply to find her glaring at him. “You remember?” he asks instead of answering her question.

“It came back to me,” she spits out.

“I was going to come back one day,” he answers, tentatively.

“You left me there for fifteen years,” she yells, advancing on him.

He wonders, briefly, if she took him away from the judgment of the Resistance only to kill him herself. She doesn’t attack him like he was expecting, though; she falls against his chest, her fists clutching at the front of his robes. His hands move on their own, wrapping around her and holding her body close to him.

“I felt the light in you,” she says, pulling away; there are no tears in her eyes for him to wipe away this time. “It’s why I could never kill you.”

“I thought it was all gone,” he responds. “I’m not the boy you knew.”

“I’m not the girl you knew,” she pauses, looking away for a moment in contemplation. “Would you have let Snoke kill me?” she finally asks in a small voice.

He’s shaking his head before the question is out all the way. “If you’d needed me, I would have helped. I never—I never wanted you to die.”

“I know,” she says with a sigh. “It made it hard to hate you even before Luke told me—“

“What I did was still wrong,” he interrupts her. “I made my own choices.”

“You protected—“

“I killed and killed and killed, Rey!”

“Would you let me finish?” she yells, and it stops him in his tracks. “It’s what Luke thought was necessary. You were _fifteen years old_ Ben! You were a child and Snoke shaped you even if you were always an agent of the Resistance.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I don’t think people are as black and white as the distinctions the dark and light would have it seem. You did bad things for the right reasons.”

“I wasn’t strong enough in the end.”

“You lived in the dark for fifteen years, Ben.”

“I should have been strong enough to fight it.”

She’s still looking at him with an angry glint to her eye, and finally she says, “Yes you should have been.”

Ben draws back in shock, not expecting her to—well, he supposes he should never have expected her to comfort him.

Rey draws closer to him, her eyes softening. “Be stronger next time.”

She has a point, he supposes.

 

They don’t leave the island for years. Other people come—Finn and Poe and his mother and even Chewie, all the people he has to apologize to—but they never leave.

Ben goes to his room at the end of a particularly hard day (“Why’d you have to kill him?” his mother had asked, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen her cry. He didn’t have an answer for her.) to find Rey in his bed. She seems to be asleep; he’s not sure what to do.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?” she questions when he turns to leave, and he jumps at her voice.

“I wasn’t sure—“

“I’m here for a reason, Ben.”

He sighs, climbing in behind her. He doesn’t let their bodies touch.

 _I don’t deserve her_ , he thinks as he has many times over the years, _there’s nothing I could ever do to deserve her_.

“Stop thinking like that,” she mumbles sleepily. _Stay with me,_ her mind pushes at his.

When he wakes up in the morning, his arms are wrapped around her, her head tucked under his chin. Their legs are tangled and her fists are clutching the front of his tunic.

He disentangles himself from her. _I don’t deserve her,_ he thinks again. Ben runs from the room. There’s only so far to go on the island.

He stops at Luke’s room.

“Master,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—wasn’t strong enough.”

He feels a hand on his shoulder, turns, expecting to find Rey, but instead he sees his uncle’s Force ghost. Ben collapses against him, sobbing for the first time in years. “Stop punishing yourself, Ben,” Luke finally says.

“I hurt so many people, Uncle.”

“Yes.”

“There were times when I enjoyed it.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t strong enough to destroy the dark.”

“Ben, do you really not understand?” Luke pauses, looking at him with none of the anger Ben was expecting. “Rey was. That was all her, but a part of her did it because she saw how the dark was destroying you.”

Ben sputters, sure he misheard. “She was saving me?”

“She was saving everyone.” With that, Luke leaves.

Ben sinks to the floor. For so long—he carried the weight of his choices. Maybe he should let them go. He’d never be able to move on if he stayed angry with himself. He’d done so much bad—so much he was ashamed of—but it was over now. Maybe that was what Rey had been trying to tell him all this time. All he could control was where he would go from here.

For the first time, he lets the light in, lets it mingle with his darkness.

He runs back to his room. Rey is still there, but she’s sitting up and glaring at him with her arms crossed. She pushes out with the Force; he lets her in, lets her see _everything._

“Oh Ben,” she says. “Come here.” She pats the bed next to her, and he goes without question. “I don’t know really what you went through when you were Kylo Ren. But you’re not that person anymore. I know you’re not the Ben I grew up with. You’re—somewhere in between. That’s alright.”

He knows now, knows it’s alright, but it’s still nice to hear here say it. Maybe that was what both sides had always messed up; maybe in fighting to be only one thing they’d doomed themselves. Both of them, him and Rey, they’re creatures of grey. He can feel it in her now better that he’s accepted himself.

“I love you,” he says, because it seems like the only think to say and because he’s wanted to say it for years _and because it’s true_.

She smirks. “I know.”


End file.
